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I& #39;ve just finished listening to the final Inspector Morse novel - I& #39;ve worked my way through them all in order over the past year - and, though I& #39;ve struggled throughout with the relentless sexism of Colin Dexter& #39;s writing, I& #39;ve found the end of the series astonishingly moving.
Partly this is due to the truly excellent narration from @exitthelemming (thanks, Samuel) which reached a peak in this final novel, and it& #39;s partly also the result of my having spent many a happy hour with Thaw and Whatley& #39;s marvellous televisual incarnations of Morse and Lewis..
But more than anything, it& #39;s due to Lewis. It& #39;s taken me a while to realise that Lewis is the hero of these novels: the honest, moral man mistreated both by the irascible, belittling Morse - much harsher than Thaw& #39;s version - and, at times, by Dexter, with all his egg-and-chips
... belittlement. You could perhaps argue (and clearly this is Dexter& #39;s doing as much as is the sexism and the patronising of his character), Lewis is almost a romantic hero whose mostly unrequited love for Morse - homosocial rather than homosexual - is the novels& #39; abiding theme.
That& #39;s why, I think, I found the series& #39; ending so affecting - it had me welling up more than any novel since Jude the Obscure thirty years ago. It& #39;s not that we& #39;re grieving for the old sod Morse, but we& #39;re sharing Lewis& #39;s devastation. And that& #39;s why the final scenes are vital.
In those final scenes, Lewis& #39;s respect for Morse is undermined painfully before it is restored by Strange, who reveals that the chief inspector& #39;s deceptions in this case have been protecting not Morse himself but Strange. Lewis can walk off into the sunset, his faith recovered.
